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Is Marella letting standards slip?

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Brummijam Holiday Sharing Rare

Brummijam

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1 hour ago, MrsPeel55 said:

 

just wanted to  confirm that the one you copied and pasted was not yours. I thought it sounded pretentious and I had some to say, but it was not your opinion so ...no worries 🙂

 

 

👍😉

 

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pinkpondqueen

pinkpondqueen

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@Brick1 Hi just found this forum and wonder if you could be kind enough to say how you found the cruise? We'll be doing Sail 3 Seas in October (Dubrovnik/Messina/Valletta/Taranto/Corfu/Bar). We've not been with Marella since before covid! I am not sure what to do in Taranto either it has such mixed reviews! Thanks in advance and hope you had a wonderful time!

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Brick1

Brick1

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55 minutes ago, pinkpondqueen said:

Oops just read now that you're not going until the end of August 😂 perhaps you would be kind enough to report back?

Hi, yes I go on Thursday for 2 weeks. I'll let you know how we get on. I know you have mentioned Taranto and there we plan on doing a free guided tour of the castle - http://www.castelloaragonesetaranto.com/

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paulatsea

paulatsea

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27 minutes ago, pinkpondqueen said:

@Brick1 hope you had a lovely cruise! How was the Explorer 2?

We did your cruise in May.
Explorer 2 was great - bars and dining and cabin and staff were excellent as usual.
It rained heavily for the first half of the cruise which spoiled the walking tours we did ! but we still enjoyed it overall.

We did ship excursions at all the stops except Bar - which was a mistake as we didn’t find much to do on our own there.

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winifred

winifred

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Hi 

I have cruised most of the major lines including Marellla/Tui and recently back from Celebrity, just to say they seem to have all reduced costs in various areas post covid, whether that be having to pay for shuttle buses or smaller range of choices in the dining room you can see the cruise lines having to claw some money back from their huge lockdown losses. 
The bullying, discussing staff and poor training is a different issue and not pleasant and I hope you reported it to  senior staff. One of of my friends  only cruises with Tui and she wasn’t keen on Explorer either, she thought the entertainment was poor and like you thought there  was serious room for improvement.  However we have enjoyed Discovery and would choose this ship again, we may have to accept that it may not be quite as it was pre pandemic. 

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Brick1

Brick1

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3 hours ago, pinkpondqueen said:

@Brick1 hope you had a lovely cruise! How was the Explorer 2?

Hi, sorry for not reporting back sooner.

 

We had an absolutely fantastic time and everything went pretty much perfectly. Our cabin was great, cabin stewards lovely, we found the food really nice, drinks were great and we upgraded to premium but you could certainly get away with normal AI. A couple of drinks they intermittently ran out of but it was no big issue.

 

Entertainment was really good and they had a couple of very good guest acts on (we were on for 2 weeks). The best thing about the ship though were the people. The staff were absolutely all lovely and couldn't do enough for you. Then the people we met, some briefly, some who we spent lots of time with and have become friends with, were all genuinely nice people. 

 

As you are doing Sail The Three Seas and this was our second week I'll mention the ports and what we did in each.

 

Dubrovnik was our cross over day from the first week to the second so we got a full day here and went into Dubrovnik and walked the walls then went around the marina etc. It was stunning. 

 

Messina we went on a TUI trip to Taormina which took around 50 minutes to get to and we had around 3 hours there. First hour was a guided tour and included entrance to the amphitheatre and the last couple of hours we ventured round on our own and had some lunch etc. The place was beautiful with some lovely architecture and great views across to Mount Etna. It is well worth visiting. When we got back to the ship we went into Messina and had a look around the town. It was a Sunday with not much open but the big bell tower clock is well with going to see. 

 

Valletta we just made our own way into Valletta on the way taking the lift that is adjacent to the port  up to the town. We had a good walk around the town and paid to watch the cannons being fired at 12pm. Valletta was lovely, again with some really nice buildings/architecture and you can easily spend 4-5 hours wandering around. On the way back o the ship we walked back down rather than take the lift and went in the Hard Rock Cafe which is adjacent to where the ship docks along with a couple of other bars/restaurants and small shops.

 

Taranto was the one place where we never got off the ship. It was our 11th day and we needed a bit of a rest and as we'd read there was not much to do there made the decision to stay on. Not one that sat easy with me as I felt guilty not getting off. We spoke to some people who did though and it was mixed reviews. Some said it was not a very nice place with not much to see, others said it was fine and a couple of people had found a beach which they said was nice. 

 

Corfu town we made our own way into the town. We had been to Corfu 10 times before on beach/resort holidays so had seen many of the lovely places to visit on the island but had never actually been around the town. The weather wasn't great on this day and it rained and was very grey which probably didn't help but Corfu town is a little run down in places in terms of not being very clean with a lot of weeds growing etc but there are some nice buildings. We also made our way to Faliraki beach which is in the town and offered some nice views and would have been a nice place to sit and have a drink and something to eat in one of the bars/restaurants there had it been a nicer day. We did eat in a real local places called Ninos Tavern and the food was lovely.

 

Bar was the real surprise of the whole 14 day cruise. One the places that we expected the least from but it was great. We got the TUI free shuttle from the industrial section of the port the cruise docks at into Bar. From there we immediately got a taxi up to Stari Bar. Make sure you haggle as we paid €15 going but only €10 on the way back down as we had spoken to other people by then. Stari Bar was stunning. We paid €3 each to go into the ruins which I can't advise enough you have to do this. The remains of the buildings in here are unreal to look at and the views from right up top blew us away. We spent around 2 hours in the ruins and then wandered around the cobbled street just outside which is lined with bars and restaurants and found a lovely bar right at the top and sat and had a couple of drinks and chatted to some people from the ship. It was lovely. We then got a taxi back down to bar and went along the promenade which was lovely, had a dip in the sea from the pebbled beach and then had some lunch at one of the many restaurants along the promenade. The whole place was beautiful and it was one of our favourite days/places of the whole cruise. We'd also at the start of our two weeks been to Kotor in Montenegro which absolutely blew us away and that along with visiting Bar has resulted in us booking an 11 day land based holiday to Montenegro next year as we fell in love with the place. It is a stunning country to visit.

 

Anyway sorry for the essay reply 🙂 Hope you have a great time, I am 100% sure you will.

 

 

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Brummijam Holiday Sharing Rare

Brummijam

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3 hours ago, pinkpondqueen said:

Not sure if anyone can help but i've read numerous online articles that mention the infinity pool at the spa on Explorer 2 - yet there is no mention of this on the Marella website! Does it exist? Thanks in advance!

Hi. Recently returned home from Ex2 and I can’t say that an infinity pool was even mentioned whilst we were onboard. But when you put the cabin tv on channel 3 there is a deck camera pointing toward the front of the ship which shows a pool, I assumed that this belongs to the spa but I never saw it being used.You can just about make it out on this photo.

image.thumb.jpeg.6bd1370757abb53bd027d280d499fda2.jpeg

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andyS87

andyS87

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After sailing with them a few times prior to covid (and having a great time) we booked the Discovery for March of this year. We definitely noticed standards had slipped and felt like that staff were stressed and very overworked. We still made the most of it but we were pretty disappointed with the whole experience.

 

We had already booked the Voyager for September this year prior to our Discovery cruise so were both quite nervous about how it would be. It turned out to be a fantastic week on the Voyager which definitely made up for the bad experiences we had in March. 
 

This has pushed us to try a new cruise company though so will be on the P&O Iona in the Norwegian Fjord next September, very excited (even though it’s a year away!)

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Jim The Scot Holiday Sharing Rare

Jim The Scot

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4 hours ago, andyS87 said:

After sailing with them a few times prior to covid (and having a great time) we booked the Discovery for March of this year. We definitely noticed standards had slipped and felt like that staff were stressed and very overworked. We still made the most of it but we were pretty disappointed with the whole experience.

 

[b]We had already booked the Voyager for September this year prior to our Discovery cruise so were both quite nervous about how it would be. It turned out to be a fantastic week on the Voyager which definitely made up for the bad experiences we had in March. [/b]
 

This has pushed us to try a new cruise company though so will be on the P&O Iona in the Norwegian Fjord next September, very excited (even though it’s a year away!)


Good to hear you enjoyed Voyager andy as we,re  it a try this week

 

Having been on all the others  Marella ships,some multiple times and knowing them inside out and what to expect,like you we are wee bit nervous/apprehensive regards Voyager but what ever will be will be

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Brummijam Holiday Sharing Rare

Brummijam

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16 minutes ago, Jim The Scot said:


Good to hear you enjoyed Voyager andy as we,re  it a try this week

 

Having been on all the others  Marella ships,some multiple times and knowing them inside out and what to expect,like you we are wee bit nervous/apprehensive regards Voyager but what ever will be will be

Hope you enjoy your trip Jim.😉

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andyS87

andyS87

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On 10/1/2023 at 1:50 PM, Jim The Scot said:


Good to hear you enjoyed Voyager andy as we,re  it a try this week

 

Having been on all the others  Marella ships,some multiple times and knowing them inside out and what to expect,like you we are wee bit nervous/apprehensive regards Voyager but what ever will be will be

Ah I’m sure you’ll have a great time, we were so impressed. Loads of places to eat and drink, we were only on it for a week so didn’t have enough time to try it all out! 
 

If you like the Explorer ships, you’ll love the Voyager as it’s very similar. 
 

Hope you enjoy!

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Jim The Scot Holiday Sharing Rare

Jim The Scot

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Thanks andy,pretty sure we will


Yeah we liked the Explorer.We are only doing the one week also but  having watched numerous vids on Voyager feel like I know it inside out,it does look nice and like the Kitchen concept

 

Looking forward to it

 

 

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